Twitter Mailbag: Fowlkes on Fitch, more Fitch, Rousey-Carmouche and more

Not that I blame you or anything. It is big news, so I’ll take the hint. We’ll get after that topic early and often in this edition of the TMB, but we’ll also carve out space to talk about Ronda Rousey, the future of women’s MMA, Dan Henderson vs. Lyoto Machida, and everything else that hangs in the balance at UFC 157 this weekend.

If you’ve got a question of your own, hit me up on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Or don’t. See if I care. Now then, on with the Fitch-a-thon.

Yesterday I wrote a pretty lengthy column on the possible explanations for and potential unintended consequences of the UFC’s decision to cut Jon Fitch, but this is one of those MMA earthquakes that still seems to be hitting us with aftershocks the next day. Like you, I was a little surprised, though not totally shocked to hear that Jacob Volkmann had been cut. We knew his style probably wasn’t the UFC’s favorite, and he’d just dropped two out of his past three. But Fitch? The UFC is really going to go and cut a fighter who’s been with the company for more than seven years, most of which time he was arguably the second-best welterweight in MMA? What gives?

According to one explanation that UFC President Dana White offered on Twitter, “After bringing in [Strikeforce] fighters there are only so many slots. Gotta be exciting and keep winning.” At the risk of reading too much into that response, isn’t it interesting which criteria comes first in White’s two-point plan for staying employed in the UFC?

Here’s where you start to feel bad for Leonard Garcia and Dan Hardy, because you know their names will inevitably come up in any discussion like this. They are the obvious examples of fighters who have survived dismal losing streaks by virtue of being “exciting” in defeat. It’s not their fault that they didn’t get fired – and really, would seeing them lose their jobs as well make us feel any better about Fitch? – but it does tell us something about the UFC’s priorities, and that something is more than a little troubling. The UFC needs to sell tickets and pay-per-views. We can all appreciate that. But it also needs to take care that it doesn’t get so caught up in providing bloody thrills that it blurs the line that separates entertainment and sport. Imagine a tennis player getting run out of the big time because his game wasn’t flashy or fast-paced enough. Imagine a golfer dropped from the pro tour because of too many boring putts for par.

The UFC should also be careful not to send the wrong message to its fighters. Dangling that ax over every athlete’s neck is likely to make many of them more and not less conservative, which is counterproductive for the UFC’s own goals. After all, if you know that victory and exciting performances are the only two things that will save your job, and if one of those things is subject to someone else’s value judgment (not to mention a willing opponent), wouldn’t you be wiser to focus on the victory part of the equation, since at least that is a firm goal that isn’t up for debate at the end?

@benfowlkesmma out of the fighters that were cut who should bellator pick up & why? #tmb

We know Bellator doesn’t want to become the organization that just scoops up UFC castoffs, and that’s smart. As Spike TV’s Kevin Kay explained when I spoke to him this past month, their general feeling on the matter is that “when guys get released from the UFC, there’s a reason.” But this does feel like a different situation. Especially if the UFC is seriously planning to cut as many as 100 fighters in order to trim its roster, as my estimable colleague John Morgan has suggested, there are bound to be some good opportunities to scoop up talent in the very near future.

Personally, I think it’d be a crime if Bellator didn’t at least give Fitch a look. I’d also seriously consider Paul Sass and Terry Etim, both of whom are still young guys with room to grow. Those are the kinds of fighters Bellator wants and needs.

@benfowlkesmma If Fitch ends up in Bellator there appears to be a collision course with a starkly similar fighter in Askren. Excited? #tmb

In the sense that we’ll really get to find out whether Ben Askren can keep doing his Ben Asken thing against someone who knows that game as well as he does? Sure. In the sense that I think it’ll be a classic brawl? Not really.

That’s the thing about the Fitch situation. It’s not that he was such a treasured gem on the UFC roster. More often than not, his fights were plodding, predictable affairs (though the bout with Erick Silva was a notable exception). Still, I don’t think that prevents us from recognizing the injustice of firing a guy who seems like he still deserves to be there on fighting merit alone. Even if we don’t enjoy watching him do what he does, you still have to respect his ability to do it, especially for so long and against so many good fighters. And even if you’re concerned that somehow an invasion of wrestlers will squeeze every last ounce of entertainment value out of MMA, the thing that stops them can’t simply be that we won’t let them play.

In a weird way, Fitch’s release forced us to appreciate him, perhaps more than ever. It’s like SI.com’s Loretta Hunt put it on Twitter yesterday, “He might be Fitch, but he’s our Fitch.” I couldn’t agree more.

@benfowlkesmma Is Fitch getting released more about his contract? Not a contender currently but still getting big $$ per fight #TMB

That’s one theory I saw floating around the Internet recently. Fitch made $66,000 to show in his last UFC fight against Demian Maia. It could be that the UFC looked at that and decided he wasn’t worth the price tag anymore. If that’s the case though, that should really depress any aspiring young fighter. And I mean really.

You’re telling me that Fitch, who’s already had a better career than 90 percent of active welterweights, and who’s been with the same organization for more than seven years, has priced himself out of a job with $66,000 in show money? Seriously? Take away taxes, training expenses, his management’s cut, and all the other miscellaneous stuff that eats into a fighter’s pay, and that’s not a ton of take-home cash for a night of professional cage fighting. If that’s too much for a guy like Fitch, most other fighters should go ahead and start working on that law school application right now because the future is grim.

@benfowlkesmma snoozers and diatribes aside can the UFC afford to let guys like Volkmann go?

One of the things the UFC has going for it when it releases fighters who are still clearly capable of beating a lot of the other guys who remain employed in the same division is the power of perception. To many fans, if the UFC cuts you, it means you suck. That creates a situation where, even if Volkmann jumps over to Bellator and goes on a tear, there will always be a subset of people who see that as proof that Bellator’s lightweights are weak, and not that Volkmann should never have been let go in the first place. It’s not right or fair, but that’s still the way it is right now. At the same time, I’d be careful about flooding the free agent market with too many quality fighters. It only makes things easier on the UFC’s competition.

@benfowlkesmma How does Condit/Hendricks make sense w/Condit not in title pic? Isn’t Nate/Condit (2 losses) & Hendricks/Jake better? #TMB

Let’s start by reminding ourselves that this wasn’t anybody’s first choice. The original plan was a Rory MacDonald-Carlos Condit rematch, which had just enough of a grudge match appeal to transcend concerns about the title picture. With MacDonald injured (again), it’s time for plan B.

I certainly wouldn’t have minded seeing Condit and Nate Marquardt go at it (assuming they’d be up for it, what with them both being Greg Jackson guys to one degree or another), but I’m also not too worried about what will happen to the sacred welterweight rankings if Condit knocks off a top contender like Johny Hendricks. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but title fight bookings in the UFC lately haven’t been restrained too severely by recent wins and losses. If Hendricks knocks Condit out, his case for a shot at Georges St-Pierre only gets stronger. If he loses, then the UFC looks further down the ranks and figures something out, or else it cranks up the volume on the superfight talk. Either would be far from unusual in the current climate for UFC title shots.

@benfowlkesmma if Liz pulls off the upset on saturday, who will perform CPR on Dana at ringside? #TMB

First things first, allow me to declare in full public view: not it. I’ll gladly give him a ride to the hospital or something, but that’s about as far as I’m willing to go.

Second, your question hints at a real issue in this fight, which is that the UFC is at least perceived to be banking on a Ronda Rousey victory. I know, we keep hearing how “tough” or “scrappy” Liz Carmouche is, but if we go back to White’s initial explanation for this pairing, we soon discover something that sounds a lot more honest from the UFC president: “Liz Carmouche was the only one who wanted the fight.”

That kind of makes it seem like the UFC views Carmouche as little more than an opponent. Oddsmakers appear to agree. You don’t have to be terribly media savvy to see that the UFC is far more interested in Rousey’s star-power than Carmouche’s, which makes it seem like the promotion itself is pulling for one fighter over another. That’s not a great place for a fight promoter to be.

Yahoo!’s Dan Wetzel had a story this week about the night White took Rousey out to a fancy Beverly Hills dinner to give her the news that she’d be making the leap to the UFC soon. It’s a good story, and you can really feel Rousey’s excitement as she’s sitting at Mr. Chow, waiting for White to tell her that her life – and, with it, UFC history – is about to change. Somehow though, I doubt Carmouche was invited to that dinner. I’d be surprised if she even got a free pizza sent to her house to help seal the deal. What does that tell us about what White and the UFC are hoping to see happen on Saturday night? White’s enough of a professional that he wouldn’t get caught on TV jumping up and down in an apoplectic fit at cageside if Carmouche were to shock the world, but I also doubt he’d be popping champagne in celebration when he got back home.

@benfowlkesmma Frankie Edgar wants Swanson or Siver next. Am I the only one who wants to see him take a slower track to the title? #TMB

You might be, yeah. I don’t know how anyone could not want to see Edgar against either Cub Swanson or Dennis Siver. Those both sound like fun fights, not to mention pretty tough ones for Edgar. You’re not going to catch me complaining about a chance to see a great featherweight non-title bout. Just make it the main event of a FUEL TV show so we can have an excuse to go five rounds.

You do realize that you’re asking me to envision a world in which Dan Henderson first wins one fight in which he’s the underdog (Lyoto Machida is about a 2.5-to-1 favorite right now), and then goes on to win another fight in which he’ll probably be an even bigger underdog, right? Not saying both those things can’t happen, but it would be a pretty surprising run. Still, fine, I’ll play along. Would that make Hendo the greatest of all time? I doubt it. Anderson Silva still takes that title, and he has one up on Henderson in the head-to-head category. It would definitely put him high in the running for greatest light heavyweight of all time, however, and if he leveraged that success into a rematch with Silva and then won that? You bet. Greatest ever. Now please, come back and join the rest of us in the world that actually exists.

@benfowlkesmma forgetting Gustafsson’s “promised” title shot, do you think Hendo-Machida winner or Glover could jump to front of line? #TMB

I’ve mostly given up trying to guess what the UFC will do in the title shot department. Call it fatigue from so many broken promises. All I can tell you is that, the way I see it, the winner of the Henderson-Machida fight deserves the next shot at the light heavyweight strap. Alexander Gustafsson is an exciting contender, but he’s young and will only get better with a little more time. He’s also facing an easier challenge in Gegard Mousasi (no offense to “Sweet Sassy,” but it’s true) while Machida and Hendo both have their hands full with one another. Plus, what if Henderson wins? The man is 42 years old. Hurry up and give him the title shot before he gets an irresistible urge to put on a pair of khaki shorts and travel the country in an RV or something.

The sky isn’t going to come crashing down, if that’s what you’re asking. The UFC already has a couple other women’s fights in the works, and there’s no reason to think those are contingent on a Rousey win. White said he’s “trying this out,” when it comes to women in the UFC, and I think he’s prepared to give it more than one fight to see how that goes. At the same time, would anybody be surprised if the UFC kept pushing a defeated Rousey way harder than a newly minted champion in Carmouche? I don’t blame the UFC for trying to get all the mileage it can out of Rousey’s sudden stardom. When your job is to put butts in seats, you use what you’ve got. I just hope that, whether she wins or loses on Saturday, the UFC’s interest in women’s MMA extends beyond the search for new Rousey armbar fodder.

@benfowlkesmma RE: Rumble-Arlovski. Rumble probably has a UFC future, but could we see Andrei back there with this win + maybe 2 more? #TMB

Andrei Arlovski suffers, I think, from being tied up in the collective MMA memory with a dismal period for UFC heavyweights. Back when it was Arlovski vs. Tim Sylvia over and over again, all the real fun was over in PRIDE. For fans to get excited about seeing him give it another go, he’d have to prove that he’s a truly different fighter from the one he was in 2005 – and in the good way. If he knocks out Anthony Johnson, and if the World Series of Fighting can find him another credible heavyweight after that, it’s possible. I’m just not sure it’s terribly likely.

@benfowlkesmma Should Rory be worried about the mileage on his body, or knee-jerk concern? (Candle that burns twice as bright…) #tmb

He should definitely be worried. Rory MacDonald is, after all, a person who makes his living with his body. Best to keep it in good working condition whenever possible. But if you’re asking whether he should be more worried than most fighters, well, maybe. Firas Zahabi told MMAjunkie.com’s own Steven Marrocco that MacDonald has a bit of a problem with overtraining, which is not uncommon for an ambitious young fighter. Now that we’re seeing fighters who got started in MMA at an early age, we might also start to see them peaking sooner and declining faster. It’s possible that one reason some MMA fighters have been so competitive well into their 30s is because they didn’t start subjecting themselves to the full rigor of this sport until their mid-20s. If you’ve been getting kicked in the head since you were 14, it’s worth slowing down a little and giving some thought to how you’re going to feel when you’re 30.

@benfowlkesmma would you let tito manage your career if you were a fighter?

It’s more of a possibility than I would have guessed, actually. My first instinct was to tell you to calm down and stop talking (tweeting) crazy since we all know the UFC loves itself some Urijah Faber. But then, wouldn’t you know it, White comes out and tells reporters that Faber could possibly be the next to go if he’s not victorious against Ivan Menjivar on Saturday. I think Faber wins that fight, but still, we’re really chopping heads left and right like this? Even if it’s Faber, who carried the torch for a long time in the WEC and is still a charismatic draw in his home state of California? Really? Maybe somebody ought to tell the UFC brass that loyalty only works when it’s a two-way street.

@benfowlkesmma With Dana’s recent understated and overdue crusade against TRT, how do we reconcile Chael being seemingly everywhere?

This is one of many questions we can and should ask ourselves about White’s TRT turnaround. He now says it’s a loophole that allows cheaters to cheat, and the UFC will go after them with increased testing. But who’s the them? Dan Henderson seems like he mostly gets a pass, either because he’s been on it for years or because he’s a vocal supporter of more testing to prevent abuse, or just because he’s 42 freaking years old and doesn’t show up to fights looking like he just stepped out of a comic book. But what about Chael Sonnen, who’s become such a fixture on those FUEL TV shows?

Sonnen says he’s already been tested by the UFC’s TRT task force. Then again, Sonnen says a lot of stuff, and you never know how much of it is true. There he is, one of the fighters known to be benefitting from the treatment that White says he is now against, and yet he’s one of the most visible spokesmen the organization has. What are we supposed to do with that? Honestly, I don’t know. I also don’t know what we’re supposed to think if, after this anti-TRT shift, nothing really changes as far as the number of fighters who are on it. Right now, all we have is the UFC president finally saying some of the right things about one of the sport’s most controversial topics. Hopefully meaningful change follows soon.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie.com and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Follow him on Twitter at @BenFowlkesMMA. Twitter Mailbag appears every Thursday on MMAjunkie.com.

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